A parking lever disposed in the vicinity of a grip of a handlebar of a motorcycle is known from, for example, Patent Literature 1 and 2.
The parking lever disclosed in Patent Literature 1 is pivotably provided in the vicinity of a left grip of a handlebar of a motorcycle. The parking lever is connected via a parking lever cable to a parking brake mechanism provided in a rear wheel of the motorcycle. When the parking lever is in a non-operated position located away from the left grip, a parking brake is released. When the parking lever pivots to an operated position located along the length of the left grip, the parking brake mechanism is actuated to apply the parking brake. When a driver starts the vehicle with the parking lever in the operated position, he grips the left grip. By gripping the left grip, he identifies the parking lever located along the left grip and remembers to release the parking brake before starting the vehicle.
For releasing the parking brake, the driver must manually operate the parking lever for pivotal movement of the parking lever from the operated position to the non-operated position. However, he would undesirably spend a lot of time and effort on such a manual operation of the parking lever before starting the vehicle.
Patent Literature 2 discloses a parking lever vertically pivotable on a horizontal support shaft extending longitudinally of a vehicle, and an operational lever (a clutch lever) horizontally pivotable on a vertical support shaft. The parking lever is disposed between the operational lever and a handlebar. When the operational lever is horizontally pivoted on the vertical support shaft towards the handlebar, a distal end portion of the operational lever presses a releasing portion of the parking lever to cause vertical pivotal movement of the parking lever on the horizontal support shaft for releasing a parking brake. That is, the operational lever and the parking lever are designed to provide a specific structure for converting a force causing the horizontal pivotal movement of the operational lever into a force causing the vertical pivotal movement of the parking lever.
The provision of such a specific structure undesirably results in an increased cost of components of the operational lever and the parking lever. Furthermore, the conversion of the force causing the horizontal pivotal movement of the operational lever into the force causing the vertical pivotal movement of the parking lever may not be smoothly made.
In addition, since the parking lever is disposed on the operational lever, the vertical pivotal movement of the parking lever provides unpleasant appearance. To make the appearance of the parking lever inconspicuous, one may propose downsizing the parking lever. However, operation of the downsized parking lever requires a great force.
There is a need to provide a mechanism for a parking brake of a vehicle, which mechanism includes a simple structure that can be operated in a short time in such a manner as to achieve smooth force conversion.